It isn’t often in California that an employer encourages workers to fight for their rights. But that’s what Dan Gerawan did two weeks ago. California Ag Today, an industry publication, got a transcript of Gerawan’s statement to workers after the November state Supreme Court decision affirming State power to coerce workers into a contract from a politically favored union. Importantly, the Supreme Court did uphold the right of farmworkers to choose their union, or choose whether they want a union…

The recent California Supreme Court ruling “isn’t fair to anyone except union leaders who stand to collect 3 percent of the pay from workers who may not wish to be represented by the UFW at all. The last thing courts should do is pick the pockets of the people who pick the fruit.” That’s what the Orange County Register editors concluded in a rebuke of the state’s high court. “The United Farm Workers union won a victory over Gerawan Farming, Inc.,…

PICK JUSTICE NEWS RELEASE / FRESNO – The California Supreme Court didn’t surprise anyone when it overturned a lower court’s ruling that state agencies cannot coerce farmworkers into United Farm Workers contracts. But the justices did uphold the right of workers to choose whether or not they wanted UFW representation. “We anticipated that the Supreme Court would side with the state’s political leaders to force contracts on us to benefit the politically-connected UFW,” said Pick Justice leader Silvia Lopez. “The…

The United Farm Workers is dying, and everybody knows it. Its aging leadership – Chavez family members and their cronies – have run the union for 20, 30, even more than 40 years. They’ve run the UFW right into the ground. The UFW is under a court order to pay as much as $2 million to its own employees whom it had cheated. Paid membership has collapsed more than 90 percent. Today, the UFW represents less than 1 percent of…

The California Supreme Court didn’t surprise anyone when it overturned a lower court’s ruling that state agencies cannot coerce farmworkers into United Farm Workers contracts. But the justices did uphold the right of workers to choose whether or not they wanted UFW representation. “We anticipated that the Supreme Court would side with the state’s political leaders to force contracts on us to benefit the politically-connected UFW,” said Pick Justice leader Silvia Lopez. Pleasant surprise – We can still de-certify the…

A lawmaker from California’s #WeFeedYou belt has called on the state Supreme Court to overturn an illegal law that allows unelected bureaucrats to force a #UFW contract on farmworkers. The law denies workers the right to bargain on their own behalf, and denies them the right to vote whether to accept the contract. It forces workers to fork over a chunk of their income to the union that the state forced on them, and forces employers to fire workers who…